PHEV

Here is another attempt to solve energy problem. People are hacking Toyota Prius. As before I've got hyper initially, but at closer look I don't see the point (apart from Toyota gearing to totally kick Detroit ass on a new gasoline crisis doing "Honda thing").

Well, the point that CalCars etc are trying to make is quite clear - 80+ mpg but let's look at what costs and what other options are available.

Acquisition costs
Toyota has been almost doubling production every year over last couple years and now stand at about 50,000 Priuses a year, pledging to double yet again in 2005-2006 to bring production to about 100,000 vehicles a year. Despite that the demand is not satisfied and still one would have to pay upto $5000 over MSRP, making the car cost about $25,000 despite ~ $20,000 MSRP. For Civic/Corolla class car this it way too expensive. Moreover, 100,000/year production figures are quite ambitious even for Toyota due to the main gating factor - availability of electric parts of the car and more so availability of the battery. So it is very unlikely to see supply catching up with demand and thus prices getting closer to MSRP. Having said that let's use $20K figure as best case scenario price (between MSRP and Invoice) which is once again is more of a wishful thinking then reality even accounting for government subsidy in the form of ~$3500 tax credit that would be available in 2005.

Lifetime supply of gas
It is not very straightforward to compare Prius to other Toyotas because it is one of a kind type of car. It could be argued that Prius is not Honda Civic Hybrid and thus comparison between Civic Hybrid and regular Civic does not apply to Prius, yet at the end Prius is still a Toyota and more so "an entry level Toyota" - It fulfils the same need, it drives like one, it... is not a BMW or whatnot. So, despite that my comparison could be considered very subjective it is still sufficient to show that Prius do not offer any economy over gasoline equivalent and thus Prius is the same story as Honda Civic Hybrid over regular Honda Civic, i.e. regular Civic comes with a lifetime supply of gas at the price of Civic Hybrid that still need to be fueled.

To prove that regular Civic comes with a lifetime supply of gas at the price of Civic Hybrid let's compare the two. Civic Hybrid MSRP is around $20K and it gets 46 mpg in the city and 51 mpg on a highway. Similar equipped regular Civic MSRP is $15K and it gets 32 mpg in the city and 38 mpg on a highway. Using 40% city and 60% highway driving that is more then adequate for average US greater metropolitan driving (EPA uses 25% city, 75% highway), average mpg for Civic Hybrid would be 49 mpg and for regular - 35 mpg and $5000 in car price difference. At 35 mpg consumption those $5000 would move regular Civic for over 100K miles (or 100K/12K ~ 8 years) if average gas price is $2 per gallon; 85K miles or 7 years with $2.5 per gallon; and 75K miles or 6 years with gas costing $3 per gallon. That means that regular Civic could be driven over 6 year and up to lifetime of the car on the money that otherwise would be spend buying Civic Hybrid in a hope to spend less money on the gas. Thus it becomes apparent that at current or nearby gasoline prices regular Civic comes with a lifetime supply of gas at the price of Civic Hybrid and thus Civic Hybrid simply makes no economic sense, not at the current price levels.

Now let's try to figure out at what price of gas Civic Hybrid would become more economical then regular Civic. The average US car is about 6 years old and drives around 12K miles a year thus the average US car drives 72K miles. Thus regular Civic would burn about 2000 gallons of gas while Hybrid would burn 1400 gallons. Minding $5000 difference in prices of those cars we come up with an equation 2000*X > 1400*X + $5000 where X is a price of a gallon of car. Solving the equation we get X > $5000/(2000-1400)=$5000/600 ~ $8.33, or the price of gas should be over $8.33 for $5000 investment into Hybrid to make it more economical over spending less money on a regular car. Once again, $8/gallon is not realistic and thus Hybrid technology would never be economical as long as it requires $5000 premium.

Finally, let's see at what premium Hybrid technology does become viable. The equation above could be slightly modified to give us the following 2000*X > 1400*X + Y, where Y is a Hybrid technology premium, which would give us Y < 600*X or in case of Civic to be viable the Hybrid technology should be cheaper then 600 times the price of gas per gallon. This means that at current prices Civic Hybrid premium should be less then $2000 to make it worth considering.


So what Prius got to do with it?
Toyota Prius is different from Civic Hybrid, it offers EV mode, etc, but it gives comparable fuel economy (60 mpg city and 51 mpg highway) and what is more important comes at the same $20K or $5K over regular Civic or comparable Toyota Corolla, Echo, Scion xA or xB that all fall into $15K range. The following table compares Prius to cars mentioned above in the same way we compared regular Civic to Civic Hybrid yielding exactly the same disappointing result.


Such disappointing results of current HEV technology raise a question of what mpg improvements are needed to make HEV viable. Generalizing equation used in Honda Civic discussion and solving it we would get that
D > Z*(1 - K/(K-1)) where D is increase in MPG, Z is MPG offered by current technology, K = X*M/Y*Z where X is a price of gallon of gas, M is average distance traveled by car, Y is the cost(premium) of HEV technology and Z is MPG offered by current technology. What is especially interesting in this formula is that improvements offered by HEV technology (D) is linearly proportional to Z - MPG offered by current technology, thus the better current technology is (higher Z) more needs to be delivered in improvements by more expensive HEV technology at the same or decreasing technology costs. This linear dependency is the "Achilles heel" of HEV or any new technology and not the 35 mph speed limit required to achieve 80+ mpg on Prius spending fortune on expensive batteries to extend EV-only range.

Both Detroit and Japan manufactures are well aware of this "Achilles heel" and this is why they are not bringing smaller and more economical vehicles (that they have outside of North America) and still are concentrating on more size and more performance even in applications of HEV technology. Consumer habits are just an excuse, really.

Diesel is the only alternative
Not going into infrastructure argument neither arguing that Americans will never drive a Yugo, on a pure technology - what are the alternatives that available today? In my opinion they are either diesel or smaller vehicles or better yet combination of both. It is only sad that Detroit is not addressing any of this and "the game" is happening mostly in Europe, but let's see advantages and drawback of what is available and at what cost.

In car category in North America still the only diesel available is a Volkswagen (not counting aging MB fleet from the 80ies). In absolute numbers it is less available then HEV Prius, but thanks to very limited demand it is more available then Prius and sometimes could even be found used, alas still at a premium. For most part in North America if you want a diesel and have no desire to drive 2-ton truck you are doomed to be facing a VW dealer. May be it is just me or my experiences, but VW North America is a story on its own; regardless, unlike gasoline engines that one could have at/above or bellow an invoice, with Volkswagen it is "German engineering at a premium".

In North America, Volkswagen only puts 100 hp 1.9TDI in both Golf and Jetta (Sorry, new Bug doesn't strike me as a car, more as a fashion statement). Both could make 38 mpg in the city and 46 mpg on a highway with manual and 32/43 with an auto. Both follows VW commitment that diesel should be just one grand over petrol and in case of a Golf it is $19K MSRP vs. $18K and in case of a Jetta it is $20K vs. $19K. And in both cases it delivers over 24/30 mpg for 2L gasoline engine, or exactly over 50% more if you know how to drive a manual.

Although diesel is sometimes more expensive then petrol, assuming the same average price for both and plugging Golf or Jetta numbers (43 mpg average for diesel vs. 28 mpg for gasoline engine) into "Civic equation" we would get that over an average 6 years/72000 miles life of car in North America diesel becomes more economical then gasoline when the price per gallon X > 1000/(2700-1700) = $1.

Moreover comparing diesel Golf or Jetta to Prius with its 60 mpg city and 51 mpg highway yielding 55 mpg on average with $1000 difference in acquisition costs, if we try to figure out miles needed to be traveled on more economical Prius to become more economical overall, we would get 55*a > 43*a + 43*1000/X, where X is a price of gallon of gas and a is a number of gallons burned after which Prius becomes more economical, or a > 43,000/(12*X) ~ 3600/X. That is at $2 gallon Prius is less economical then diesel Golf for the first 1800 gallons or 1800*55 = 99K miles, at $3 gas it would be 1200 gallons or 66K miles, still almost the average life of a car in US. And this is with mere $1000 in costs of HEV over Volkswagen diesel, and with, in my personal opinion, Volkswagen being a lot more of a car then Prius.

But, despite such a long write up the story doesn't end here. Being more economical then anything on North American market Volkswagen 1.9 TDI diesel is still dated and not the best option available for example in Europe. In Europe both 1.9 TDI and Golf or Jetta/Bora are "luxury" with VW Polo being what Golf is in USA. Although top line Polos sport the same 1.9 TDI engine most common are its smaller 1.4 litter brothers - 70 and 80 hp 3 cylinder diesels consuming 4.5 litter per 100 km in mixed cycle or over 50 mpg (4L/100km highway and 5.6L/100km city). Those 1.4L diesels are the most competitive side of European personal vehicle market with competition not dictated by how much you could travel on a gallon of diesel, but rather by how little CO you could emit and prerogative being the less fuel you burn, the less CO you emit. As a result of this competition 1.4L European diesels are rapidly approaching 4L/100km or 60 mpg "finish line" with especially good results coming from France from both Renault and PSA. The results are presented in the table bellow
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Engine	HP	Hwy/City/Mixed	In MPG	Vehicles
Renault 1.4L	65	3.7/5.4/4.3	63/43/55	Clio, etc
Citroen 1.4L	70	3.7/5.1/4.2	63//
Peugeot 1.4L	54	3.4/5.3/4.1	//
Peugeot 1.4L	70	3.6/5.5/4.3	//

Forget Smart with its 0.8L TDI engine delivering the same 4L/100km or 60 mpg! Those engines are capable of propelling a lot bigger cars then Yugo (or Smart), but of course 70 hp will not move Expedition or even RAV. Still they are quite capable of propelling something the size of Civic and this is more then enough to deliver most suburbians 30+ miles to their place of work and back and hooping them to Walmart too at about 1/4 of the current cost. Thus, it is only a pity that neither Detroit nor Japan get it and the most viable option in US still remains a 3 years old 22 mpg Ford Escape or something along those lines.

As for PHEV, those guys are as much dreamers as those who believes that government is doing the right thing subsidizing "Hydrogen economy"